https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/61380
Cults
Religion is an individual experience. Only an individual can be religious.
The cult is an establishment, it is an organization, it has nothing to do with religion at all. It exploits in the name of religion. It pretends to be religious and lives on the past.
For example: Christians will say that they have a two thousand year history. But the past is dead, it is a corpse. This is a very strange world in which we live. When Jesus was there, Jews could not accept him as religious: he and his followers were a "cult".
Jesus is a religious man so there was the fragrance of religion around him, and those who were sensitive, available, receptive, came close to Jesus. This coming to Jesus was not a question of any intellectual conviction; it was more like a love affair. They simply fell in love with the man.
The religious man never converts anybody, but his presence inspires many people to be with him. A religious person has no followers, only fellow travelers -- it is impossible for a religious person to insult somebody by calling him a follower.
When Jesus was crucified, a strange thing happened, something that has happened to almost all the religions. The same type of people who had crucified Jesus -- the rabbis, the priesthood... the same type of people gathered around the dead religious phenomenon, which had gone, which was not there anymore.
It is just like the fragrance of a flower. The flower is gone, the fragrance lingers on a little -- and then it is lost.
Religion cannot have a continuity. It will always be individual, here and there.
One individual becomes enlightened and suddenly people start becoming attracted towards him as if by a magnetic force.
Jesus is not an intellectual; he is not even educated. He is not a theologian; he cannot argue for God or for religion. In all his teachings there is no argument, they are statements.
A philosopher argues, a religious person states.
The philosopher argues because he does not know; it is through argument that he wants to come to a conclusion. But the religious person knows it. He states it, it is a declaration -- and he also knows that there is no way to prove it. No argument is going to be supportive of it.
But once that magnet disappears....
The priest is the most cunning part of humanity -- and clever. He is a businessman, he sees the opportunity of a great business. While jesus is alive, it is dangerous to be with him. No businessman will come close to him -- only gamblers may risk it and be with him. It is dangerous to be with him: he can be crucified, you can be crucified.
But once he is dead it is a great opportunity for business. Then a new kind of people start gathering around: those are the priests, the popes, the imams, the rabbis – learned, scholarly, argumentative, dogmatic. They create the dogma, the creed. They create the cult.
On the dead body of a religious person, a cult is created.
Christianity is a cult. [....]
A cult is a business, a religious kind of business. It has a religious jargon. It has no experience.
Yes, once somewhere in the past there may have been a flower, but it is gone. Centuries have passed, and since then the priest goes on pretending that he is the representative of that fragrance. Nobody can represent fragrance: it comes with the flower and goes with the flower.
But the priest can create a plastic flower, can even put French perfume on it. And that's what he has been doing in all the religions.
Religion is rebellious, is bound to be so, because religion starts saying things which the tradition will oppose, because only one of these two can exist: either the mass, unintelligent crowd -- mind which makes the tradition, or a man like jesus or Buddha or Mahavira.
They are alone. And what they are saying can be understood only by the chosen few.
What they bring to the world is something so otherworldly, that unless you can have a heart to heart contact with them, there is no way of understanding them -- you will misunderstand.
-Osho, “From Ignorance to Innocence, #18, Q1“
